SuperCache Express™ 5 on Servers

SuperCache Express™ 5 implements patented block-level
caching technology to raise system performance beyond that of the NT file-level
cache alone. It breaks the disk I/O bottleneck by using the server's system
memory to store the most frequently used data, executing read and write
requests from memory rather than from disk. SuperCache Express
core component is a storage volume filter driver which resides in the
storage stack just above the storage volume class drivers."

How it works

SuperCache Express intelligently stores
frequently used disk data in system memory. The memory used to store the
data is called a cache. SuperCache Express intercepts
requests for disk data and, when possible, fulfills the request using
the cache instead of requesting data from the disk. When data is read
from or written to the cache, the performance is similar to a RAM disk
– extremely fast.

Unlike our RamDisk products,
some requested data will not always be present in the cache. Although
data for all requests come from or go to the cache, some will also involve
the disk. Nonetheless, depending upon the size of the cache and the nature
of the disk I/O requests, performance accelerations can be significant
and often dramatic.

When deferred writing is enabled, SuperCache
Express accelerates disk writes. With deferred writing, write
requests are fulfilled immediately by simply writing the data to the
cache. Later, SuperCache Express writes the data to
the hard disk. Deferred writing is also known as lazywriting, since
the write data stored in the cache is 'lazily' written to the disk afterward.

The effect of deferred writing is to 'smooth out' I/O activity on the
hard drive. Applications and services with large flows of write data
will especially benefit from deferred writing.

It is important to note that enabling deferred writing increases the
risk of data loss in the event of a system crash or power failure. SuperSpeed
Software recommends that you enable the lazy-write feature ONLY on systems
equipped with an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).

Why another cache?

Doesn’t Windows already have a cache?
The Windows operating system supports a file-system level cache, the NT
file-system cache. However, the flow of data at the file-system level
and the flow of data at the block (or storage volume) level are not the
same. Each level – the file-system level and the block level –
represents a different data flow paradigm, or model. Optimization of flows
at the file system level does not optimize flows at the block level. SuperCache
Express enhances disk I/O throughput by optimizing flows at
the block-level.

The data files are located on a disk partition or disk volume
that is too large to fit into available physical
memory, and cannot be moved to one where they will fit.

3.

The data files must not be placed on a volatile disk.

Support for NUMA

Windows Server 2003 SP1 and later operating systems
provide special support for machines with a non-uniform memory architecture
(NUMA). When active on such platforms, the memory manager for SuperCache
Express examines the processor and memory affinities reported
by Windows and the ACPI SRAT, and then optimizes physical memory allocations
across the described NUMA nodes. The NUMA support in SuperCache
Express greatly improves the speed of memory allocations and
equalizes the distribution of cache allocations among the NUMA nodes.
Currently, NUMA support does not include the ability to build caches
on specific nodes.

New Interface

SuperCache Express now has a more user
friendly and informative interface.

Overview of available storage drives in system

Caching graph showing 4 performance items

Configure SuperCache by right clicking a volume

Added Feature called "Mirror
Mode"

SuperCache Mirror Mode (formerly a separate product called
SuperVolume) allows the user to duplicate an entire volume/partition
into RAM. Learn
more about Mirror Mode.

Licensing

A SuperCache Express license specifies
an operating system edition and a processor count. A license specifying
a particular operating system edition will permit usage of the product
on that and inferior editions. Similarly, a license specifying particular
processor count (physical processor socket count) will permit usage of
the product on machines with that or an inferior number of processors
enabled.

SuperSpeed LLC is the owner of the following
U.S. Patents 5577226, 5606681, 5918244, 6370615, 6629201, 6651136, 7017013,
7039767, 7111129, 7475186, 7594068, 7631139, 7886099 and other patents are pending.